My message to the Christian community in Malaysia, is that using the word Allah to mean the Christian God may be theologically and legally correct, but in the context of Malaysia, it is socially provocative. If you want to have influence with people in Malaysia, you must find a way to convey your message without provoking this kind of response. Imam Rauf

When everything from sneakers to stuffed animals to comics to frescos to beauty queens to fast-food packaging to undies serves as dry tinder for Allah’s avengers, it’s a grand farce to feign concern about the recruitment effect of a few burnt Korans in the hands of a two-bit attention-seeker in Florida. The eternal flame of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago. Michelle Malkin

Remember the classified prisoner-abuse photos that the Obama administration was hot to disclose last year, until a groundswell of protest from the military and the public finally impelled Congress to act responsibly when the president wouldn’t? That, too, was a gratuitous provocation that would have served no purpose other than to pull the hair-trigger of Muslim rage. Yet the Left — including the Justice Department — was indifferent to the threat posed to our troops by that action. The pictures simply had to be disclosed because they may have made the United States and the Bush administration look bad, and anything that can make the United States and the Bush administration look bad is worth doing, no matter the cost. Andrew C. McCarthy

Just because you have a right to do something in America does not mean it is the right thing to do. The Constitution does, indeed, protect both, but they are not morally equivalent. In New York City, a group of Muslims is trying to build something. Mr. Jones and his supporters are trying to tear down more than two centuries of religious tolerance. John Boehner (the Republican leader in the House)

Obama should have condemned what Jones wanted to do, but defended unequivocally his right to do it. In response to calls for censorship from around the world, he should have explained clearly that the U.S. president doesn’t have that power — and that he’s glad he doesn’t. He should have declared that America is great in part because its people are free to study the Bible or the Torah or the Koran or the Constitution — and, yes, within very wide limits, to burn them in protest. He might have added that many Muslim-majority countries could themselves benefit from more such freedom of thought, speech and expression.Charles Lane

Everyone is trying to outdo one another in righteous condemnation of the Reverend Terry Jones and his micro-flock, to assure the world that 50 people out of 300 million does not a majority make. That is altogether fine and good, and yet we all know the asymmetry involved — whether it is a scholarly remark made by a pope and the Muslim riots in response, or the policies of many Arab countries forbidding open worship by other religions and, in some cases, the presence of non-Muslims in entire cities.

But all that said, our political and military leaders — whether a general, a secretary of defense, or a president — are making a grave mistake by commenting directly on this pathetic figure. If a gesture is needed by our leaders, a simple “The United States ensures freedom of speech, even disturbing expressions of it, and has always paid the subsequent price for ill-manners” would have been enough.

We are at war with radical Islam, from the battlefield in Afghanistan to stealthy terrorists here at home, and we are struggling to win the hearts and minds of Muslim populations in general. But we can’t offer 24/7 exegeses of 300 million Americans’ free speech. No such we-must-be-perfect-to-be-good burden was thought to accompany past wars, even though zealots at home often misinterpreted our efforts against Japanese militarism, German Nazism, or Communism, and despite the fact that our silence sometimes aided and abetted our enemies, both directly and indirectly.

We are reaching the point where the damage done to America’s image by 50 book-burners is outweighed by the damage done by hypersensitivity on the part of the United States government, which hopes to assuage the hurt feelings of those abroad who equate that tiny number with our culture at large — often in an abjectly hypocritical fashion. We know where this leads — to endless efforts to micromanage all elements of American life to protect the sensitivities of those who, by act and deed, are far more intolerant of different religions and cultures.

Already we’ve seen the omnipresent Imam Rauf suggest that, if he were not to get his selfish way, then nebulous, omnipotent radical forces abroad would be upset, and consequences for our troops would follow. His time would be far better spent either lecturing Saudi financiers to stop funding hate-filled madrassas and mosques or, even better, galvanizing world opinion over the carnage in Chechnya, where Russians used a level of violence against Muslims in Grozny that we have not seen since Mr. Assad leveled Hama.

If our leaders don’t relax, cool it, and stop these weird presidential “teachable moments” and all this stooping to editorialize about local irrelevancies (cf. the beer summit, the Tony Robbins–like escapades of the ubiqutious Imam Rauf, the line about Arizona law enforcement supposedly deporting the innocent “out to get ice cream,” etc.), we will devolve to the level of psychodrama. Indeed, this brilliantly entrepreneurial book-burning pastor has taken our government down to that level as it is. What’s next? Heaven forbid a gang-banger in East L.A. and his 50-person tribe should start sporting anti-Islamic insignia on their chests. Or Mr. Rushdie should quite rudely publish a sequel to The Satanic Verses. Two more inappropriate Danish cartoons? Is the Cabinet going to start devoting 3-4 hours a week to apologetic commentary directed at the Islamic world for the rude and uncouth among us?

President Obama was certainly right to be disgusted by « Reverend » Terry Jones’s threat to stage a public burning of the Koran, a plan that was mean, stupid, intolerant, and spookily evocative of Hitlerian book bonfires. But I am also troubled by Obama’s efforts to hector Jones into changing his mind. Everyone should worry when presidents invoke wartime security, or similar arguments, against constitutionally protected free speech, even — or especially — when the speech is offensive, outrageous and unpopular.

Strictly speaking, there was nothing unconstitutional about Obama’s campaign, abetted by an all-star cast of national security officials, to get Jones to back off. Presidents have free speech, too. But when was the last time an American citizen got a phone call from the Secretary of Defense urging him to call off a political demonstration? Invoking his status as commander-in-chief, Obama accused Jones of, in effect, abetting America’s enemies: « This kind of behavior or threats of action put our young men and women in harm’s way. And it’s also the best imaginable recruiting tool for al-Qaeda. »

This was pretty heavy-handed use of the bully pulpit. The president seemed oblivious to the contradiction between his pressure on Jones and his view, repeated at Friday’s press conference, that the U.S. must strictly follow the Constitution when prosecuting terrorism suspects — lest the terrorists win by getting us to curtail liberty. « We can’t be frightened by a handful of people who are trying to do us harm, » he said. Yet to the extent Obama opposed Jones’s exercise of free speech — including mere « threats of action » — because it might trigger a violent reaction, he was expressing, and yielding to, fear of those very « people. »

Obama should have condemned what Jones wanted to do, but defended unequivocally his right to do it.

In response to calls for censorship from around the world, he should have explained clearly that the U.S. president doesn’t have that power — and that he’s glad he doesn’t. He should have declared that America is great in part because its people are free to study the Bible or the Torah or the Koran or the Constitution — and, yes, within very wide limits, to burn them in protest. He might have added that many Muslim-majority countries could themselves benefit from more such freedom of thought, speech and expression.

Instead, he offered the tepid affirmation, in an interview with ABC News, that « part of this country’s history is people doing destructive or offensive or harmful things. And yet, we still have to make sure that we’re following the laws. And that’s part of what I love about this country. »

Instead, the president of the United States broadcast his fear that a U.S. citizen’s exercise of his liberty will provoke Muslim violence — without even calling upon Muslims to refrain from such attacks, much less declaring that they would be completely unjustified, and correspondingly resisted.

Worst of all, Obama set a precedent for presidentially-encouraged self-censorship based on the anticipated mood swings of mobs and fanatics.

Terry Jones created a bad situation; the president’s reaction may make it worse.

The Koran-burning stunt is a stupid and pointless provocation — sound familiar?

Andrew C. McCarthy

National review

September 9, 2010

How do you know your vacation has been too short? You leave behind one charlatan, whose concept of “building bridges” is a patently offensive project to build a giant Islamic center on a site where the remains of the thousands killed by Islamist terrorists are still being found, and then return to deal with another charlatan, one whose idea of nurturing a Christian community is to rally it to the gratuitously offensive gesture of burning Korans.

It’s a shame that we need to waste time condemning minister Terry Jones. He’s obviously a nincompoop. But I suppose the fact that he’s being universally condemned for this useless provocation is an improvement. Remember the classified prisoner-abuse photos that the Obama administration was hot to disclose last year, until a groundswell of protest from the military and the public finally impelled Congress to act responsibly when the president wouldn’t? That, too, was a gratuitous provocation that would have served no purpose other than to pull the hair-trigger of Muslim rage. Yet the Left — including the Justice Department — was indifferent to the threat posed to our troops by that action. The pictures simply had to be disclosed because they may have made the United States and the Bush administration look bad, and anything that can make the United States and the Bush administration look bad is worth doing, no matter the cost.

We were able to stop that, and let’s hope someone is able to talk some sense into the Rev. Jones. But as we reflect on what a moron he is, it is worth examining this episode through the prism of moronic rationalizations offered by Ground Zero mosque proponents to justify their enterprise — and, in Imam Feisal Rauf’s case, to excuse terrorism.

For instance, I’m wondering whether President Obama, after his always clarifying “Let me be clear,” has yet been heard to say,

I believe that Christian ministers have the same right to free expression as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to torch a Koran on private property in Florida, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to free expression must be unshakeable. The writ of the Founders must endure.

The president can always come back the next day and explain that he wasn’t talking about the wisdom of burning Korans, only the irrelevant fact that a jackass has a right to be a jackass.

And what of Imam Rauf? Strangely, he has not yet explained that “in the most direct sense, the Rev. Jones was made in the K.S.A. — the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Given its Wahhabist breeding and its financial backing of jihadists, coupled with sharia measures that (along with subjugating women and executing apostates) mandate the burning of Bibles, crucifixes, and Stars of David, you could easily see why the Rev. Jones feels he’s been “humiliated” and had his passionate feelings “ignored” by Saudi Arabia and other purveyors of Islamist ideology. Maybe he just “feels the need to conflagrate.”

Here’s an interesting thing about the man behind the mosque. A few months back, a controversial court ruling in Malaysia held that “Allah,” the Arabic word for God, was not the exclusive property of Muslims. A Christian monthly, the Herald, had decided it would use “Allah” to refer to God — as Imam Rauf is fond of saying, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all Abrahamic faiths whose adherents worship the same deity, right? So why not use the same name?

It turns out that tolerant, moderate Malaysian Muslims didn’t see things quite that way. They took the Christians’ ecumenical gesture as an affront — an effort to proselytize for Christianity or, as Imam Rauf himself put it, “to manipulate the word [“Allah”] to win converts.” So the tolerant, moderate Muslims did their usual Terry-Jackass-Jones-on-steroids routine: They didn’t just burn Bibles, they fire-bombed churches. Non-Islamic proselytism is prohibited by sharia, as Imam Rauf, who wants the United States to be more sharia-compliant, could tell you.

And what did Rauf do? Did he condemn this blatant Christianophobia? Did he lecture Malaysians that the Herald was perfectly within its legal rights to invoke “Allah” in the service of Christianity, and that living in a tolerant, pluralistic society that ensures free expression means accepting the Herald’s actions even if they make Muslims uncomfortable?

Are you kidding?

Instead, Imam Rauf took to the newspapers to admonish Christians on the need to show more sensitivity to Muslims’ feelings. “My message to the Christian community in Malaysia,” he proclaimed, “is that using the word Allah to mean the Christian God may be theologically and legally correct, but in the context of Malaysia, it is socially provocative. If you want to have influence with people in Malaysia, you must find a way to convey your message without provoking this kind of response.”

You know what else might be “socially provocative”? A giant mosque at Ground Zero.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

If they’re not outraged by Ground Zero mosque protesters, it will be something else.

Michelle Malkin

National review

September 10, 2010

Shhhhhhh, we’re told. Don’t protest the Ground Zero mosque. Don’t burn a Koran. It’ll imperil the troops. It’ll inflame tensions. The “Muslim world” will “explode” if it does not get its way, warns sharia-peddling imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Pardon my national-security-threatening impudence, but when is the “Muslim world” not ready to “explode”?

At the risk of provoking the ever-volatile Religion of Perpetual Outrage, let us count the little-noticed and forgotten ways.

Just a few months ago in Kashmir, faithful Muslims rioted over what they thought was a mosque depicted on underwear sold by street vendors. The mob shut down businesses and clashed with police over the blasphemous skivvies. But it turned out there was no need for Allah’s avengers to get their holy knickers in a bunch. The alleged mosque was actually a building resembling London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. A Kashmiri law-enforcement official later concluded the protests were “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”

Indeed, art and graphics have an uncanny way of vitiating the Muslim world’s atmosphere. In 1994, Muslims threatened German supermodel Claudia Schiffer with death after she wore a Karl Lagerfeld–designed dress printed with a saying from the Koran. In 1997, outraged Muslims forced Nike to recall 800,000 shoes because they claimed the company’s “Air” logo looked like the Arabic script for “Allah.” In 1998, another conflagration spread over Unilever’s ice-cream logo — which Muslims claimed looked like “Allah” if read upside-down and backwards (can’t recall what they said it resembled if you viewed it with 3D glasses).

Even more explosively, in 2002, an al-Qaeda-linked jihadist cell plotted to blow up Bologna, Italy’s Church of San Petronio because it displayed a 15th-century fresco depicting Mohammed being tormented in the ninth circle of Hell. For years, Muslims had demanded that the art come down. Counterterrorism officials in Europe caught the would-be bombers on tape scouting out the church and exclaiming, “May Allah bring it all down. It will all come down.”

That same year, Nigerian Muslims stabbed, bludgeoned, or burned to death 200 people in protest of the Miss World beauty pageant — which they considered an affront to Allah. Contest organizers fled out of fear of inflaming further destruction. When Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel joked that Mohammed would have approved of the pageant and that “in all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them,” her newspaper rushed to print three retractions and apologies in a row. It didn’t stop Muslim vigilantes from torching the newspaper’s offices. A fatwa was issued on Daniel’s life by a Nigerian official in the sharia-ruled state of Zamfara, who declared that “the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed. It is abiding on all Muslims wherever they are to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty.” Daniel fled to Norway.

In 2005, British Muslims got all hot and bothered over a Burger King ice-cream-cone container whose swirly-texted label resembled, you guessed it, the Arabic script for “Allah.” The restaurant chain yanked the product in a panic and prostrated itself before the Muslim world. But the fast-food dessert had already become a handy radical-Islamic recruiting tool. Rashad Akhtar, a young British Muslim, told Harper’s Magazine how the ice-cream caper had inspired him: “Even though it means nothing to some people and may mean nothing to some Muslims in this country, this is my jihad. I’m not going to rest until I find the person who is responsible. I’m going to bring this country down.”

In 2007, Muslims combusted again in Sudan after an infidel elementary-school teacher innocently named a classroom teddy bear “Mohammed.” Protesters chanted, “Kill her, kill her by firing squad!” and “No tolerance — execution!” She was arrested and jailed, and faced 40 lashes for blasphemy before being freed after eight days. Not wanting to cause further inflammation, the teacher rushed to apologize: “I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone, and I am sorry if I caused any distress.”

And who could forget the global Danish-cartoon riots of 2006 (instigated by imams who toured Egypt stoking hysteria with faked anti-Islam comic strips)? From Afghanistan to Egypt to Lebanon to Libya, Pakistan, Turkey, and in between, hundreds died under the pretext of protecting Mohammed from Western slight, and brave journalists who stood up to the madness were threatened with beheading. It wasn’t really about the cartoons at all, of course. Little remembered is the fact that Muslim bullies were attempting to pressure Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for continuing with its nuclear-research program. The chairmanship of the council was passing to Denmark at the time. Yes, it was just another in a long line of manufactured Muslim explosions that were, to borrow a useful phrase, “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”

When everything from sneakers to stuffed animals to comics to frescos to beauty queens to fast-food packaging to undies serves as dry tinder for Allah’s avengers, it’s a grand farce to feign concern about the recruitment effect of a few burnt Korans in the hands of a two-bit attention-seeker in Florida. The eternal flame of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago.